Faction leaders' cooperation on landmines praised

Somalia's faction leaders have shown encouraging support to the international community's efforts to curb the use of landmines, and to clear out mines which have been buried for years throughout the country, a Swiss-based international humanitarian organisation has said. Lare Okungu, the Africa regional director of Geneva Call which is dedicated to landmine action, said several Somali factions had cooperated with landmine initiatives and some had even sought assistance for mine clearance in regions under their control. "The goodwill we have seen so far is paving the way forward," Okungu told a meeting in Nairobi aimed at reviewing a landmine accord signed last November. "The international community has opened the door for mine action in Somalia. But it is important that the initiative comes from the Somalis themselves. We can only assist technically," Okungu said. The November agreement was signed by 16 Somali faction leaders and the Transitional National Government at a meeting facilitated by the regional body Inter-Governmental Authority on development (IGAD) in Kenya. Pascal Bongard, a programme coordinator with Geneva Call, said a team of five mine experts was soon expected to tour several parts of Somalia, and hold talks with several faction groups. "We want to assess what supportive role we can play in terms of implementation of the agreement. We also hope to find the possibility of launching mine action programmes in Somalia," Bongard said. "Our work is to help to address the landmine problem. The mission will last two weeks and we will visit as many areas as possible." Somalia, which has had no effective central governing authority since the civil war started in 1991, is one of the most heavily mined countries in Africa, with an estimated one million land mines buried throughout the country. Up to 4,400 people were killed or injured by landmines between 1995 and 2000, according to Geneva Call. The people most affected by the mine problem in Somalia are the nomadic pastoralist groups.